id Software on the future of mobile gaming

John Carmack, one of the most innovative and tech-savvy games designers of our generation, thinks that mobile smartphone gaming is the future.

Carmack has recently released the critically-acclaimed Rage for iPad and iPhone and iPod touch, a game that has caused many gamers and hardcore games developers to take a long, hard look at the potential of "proper" games on iOS devices.

The overwhelmingly positive response to Carmack's first iOS game from QuakeCon last year clearly shows that there is a market for proper non-casual games amongst adult smartphone owners.

Rage on mobile

Jason Kim, producer on the forthcoming PC and console version of id's Rage – out this coming October – told CVG recently that Carmack knocked the iOS version of the game together in almost no time.

"It's really been interesting to see our mobile development team work on that compartmentalised piece of Rage content," Kim told CVG.

"It's another one of those great things working at id with John Carmack and those guys that are able to take some idea and turn it into a whole product that people can actually play and get in their hands.

"John went away and literally in a couple of weeks, came back with an engine that works on the iPhone," he added

"When he was walking around the office with it working on the iPhone, he would show it to people and their jaws were dropping like, 'Oh my God is that running on iPhone? Is that real time or is that a video?'

"He was moving things around in real time and this is just him going off and making something that runs on a little mobile device.

"That's him being able to analyse the hardware and understanding how to create rendering technology and maximises the opportunities within that piece of hardware and what he can program to make it work.

More to be done

Kim continued: "I think there's a lot more that could be done there but we don't have it all planned out, it's actually nice not to know how different things are going to be. Mobile devices are changing very quickly, some people are changing their phones every year.

I think it depends on what really happens with these mobile devices, what happens on the Apple Store, how Android works and what kind of store front they have and how popular those apps become.

"There are so many different ways that this could go and it's not totally clear to us but we put something out there and I think it's done really well for us. It's a foray into uncharted territory and it begins with John saying, 'I want to get a game working on that little device'.'"

See the full interview with Rage producer Jason Kim over on CVG